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Contributor

Amelia Raitt is a former writer for the television program Mr. Belvedere and has been writing about pop music of all colors and stripes for eMusic since 2005. S...more »

04.22.11

The Whitsundays, The Whitsundays

2008 | Label: Friendly Fire Recordings / The Orchard

The Whitsundays are from Canada, but their heart belongs Britain. The songs on their self-titled debut run the Anglophile gamut, from hazy '60s psych (see the steady burble of "Loralee") to the bright and sparkly sound of Manchester in the '80s ("Sorry James," which is just an ounce of bravado shy of solo Morrissey). Vocalist Paul Arnusch is breathy and unassuming, making every lyric sound more like a polite request than a desperate plea. The… read more »

Contributor

Amelia Raitt is a former writer for the television program Mr. Belvedere and has been writing about pop music of all colors and stripes for eMusic since 2005. S...more »

04.22.11

The Whitsundays, The Whitsundays

2008 | Label: Friendly Fire Recordings / The Orchard

The Whitsundays are from Canada, but their heart belongs Britain. The songs on their self-titled debut run the Anglophile gamut, from hazy '60s psych (see the steady burble of "Loralee") to the bright and sparkly sound of Manchester in the '80s ("Sorry James," which is just an ounce of bravado shy of solo Morrissey). Vocalist Paul Arnusch is breathy and unassuming, making every lyric sound more like a polite request than a desperate plea. The Whitsundays write songs suitable for falling in and out of love, mood music for any mood.

The Good Pop

oh yeah!

This is the first time I've heard these guys and I really, really like it! Definitely can hear the Zombies in there, not sure 'bout the Animals yet, though! But can hear a bit of Graham from Blur in places (maybe he's channeling the Zombies, me thinks). Give it a listen and see for yourself, you won't be disappointed!

Two-fifths of Edmonton, Alberta’s Whitsundays are also the rhythm section of the LCD Soundsystem-like electro-dance group Shout Out Out Out Out, a crossover notable mostly because the two bands have almost nothing in common otherwise. Named, somewhat inexplicably, after a chain of islands along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsundays belong alongside modern-day pillagers of vintage pop like the Shins or Belle & Sebastian. On first listen, a rather annoying production choice — singer/songwriter Paul Arnusch’s vocals are bathed in echoey reverb on nearly every song — nearly overwhelms the charms of the songs themselves. Listening past that, it’s clear where Arnusch’s influences lie — the intimate, whispery vocals and splashy electric piano solos of “Falling Over” and “The Ways of the Sweet Talking Boys” are straight out of the Zombies playbook, and the vocal arrangement of the knowingly self-abasing “It Must Be Me” is 100 percent Pet Sounds pastiche, right down to the choral-round coda — but interestingly, the further the Whitsundays move from that sound, the less interesting the songs get. “Antisocial,” for example, is an unconvincing stab at a punky garage rocker, which is immediately topped by the far superior “Sorry James,” a minor-key character study in alienation set against an ironically upbeat and jaunty bassline. The Whitsundays is an unapologetically derivative record, but the way that it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a modern indie rock recasting of some of Arnusch’s favorite old records makes it hard to fault: as mildly plagiaristic pop records go, this one’s really quite good. – Stewart Mason